Applied Coating Technologies for Portland Cement

Concrete is the most-used construction material on the face of the earth. It is versatile, durable, and economic. The United States alone uses approximately 340 million cubic yards (260 million cubic meters) of ready-mixed concrete each year. It is used in highways, streets, parking lots, parking garages, bridges, high-rise buildings, dams, homes, floors, sidewalks, driveways.

Concrete is plastic and malleable when newly mixed, strong and durable when hardened. These qualities allow this one material to build skyscrapers, bridges, sidewalks and superhighways, houses and dams.

Portland cement, the basic ingredient of concrete, is brought into existence by a closely controlled chemical mixing of calcium, silicon, aluminum, iron, and small amounts of other ingredients. Gypsum is added in the final grinding process to regulate the setting time of the concrete. Lime and silica make up close to 85% of the mass. Common among the materials used in concrete's manufacture are limestone, shells, and chalk or marl combined with shale, clay, slate, silica sand, and iron ore.

Portland cement was invented in 1824 by British mason Joseph Aspdin. It stands in contrast to "Roman" cement, which is a crude formulation of lime and volcanic ash used for 1900 years prior to Aspdin's creation. Aspdin named his new product after a highly valued building stone quarried on the Isle of Portland which sits off the British coast.